NEWARK — When students graduate from medical school, they usually spend time in a hospital residency program learning how to be doctors.

Aspiring teachers get a chance to student teach in a school before they graduate. Plumbers, electricians and other trades workers often apprentice in their fields before getting a job.

But lawyers? Most law students take their degrees and head directly into a law firm or their own law practice, where they are expected to start generating business right away.
“Law schools have never developed the residency model,” said Andy Rothman, associate dean of the Rutgers School of Law-Newark. “New lawyers are being thrown into the world of trying to bill thousands of hours.”

Rutgers School of Law-Newark has launched a program to ease graduates into the legal profession. The program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, is paying new law school graduates $30,000 to spend a year working in an on-campus law firm serving low- and moderate-income New Jerseyans.

Under Rothman’s guidance, the newly minted lawyers take on criminal, divorce, custody, special education, estate, landlord-tenant and other cases for clients who make too much money to qualify for free legal help. The Rutgers Law Associates Fellowship Program charges clients $50 an hour, a fraction of the $250 to $300 hourly rate many private attorneys charge.

The six Rutgers School of Law-Newark graduates chosen for the fellowship are headquartered in a small, third-floor office overlooking the stairwell and law library in Rutgers-Newark’s Center for Law & Justice building. The attorneys sit in close quarters in a ring of adjacent desks.

Rothman comes in every day to do “rounds,” discussing pending legal cases with the group in the same way a veteran doctor would discuss medical cases with a group of medical residents in a hospital.

“It’s good because we are able to throw ideas around and learn from one another’s mistakes as well as successes,” said Heidi Bramson, 34, one of the Rutgers School of Law-Newark graduates chosen for the fellowship.

In their first six weeks on the job, each of the attorneys has taken on at least three or four cases. Because the program is still new, most of their clients have come to them through word of mouth.

A few weeks ago, Tabitha Clark stood before a judge representing a client facing a third-degree theft charge in Newark. The brand-new lawyer had to rely on the judge to help guide her through the arraignment process, but Clark said she was able to get permission for her client to apply for a pretrial intervention program and, perhaps, avoid jail time.

Clark, 24, said she has also taken on a landlord-tenant dispute and is willing to take any case that comes through the door as she decides what type of law she wants to practice.
“I still don’t know what it is I want to do exactly,” said Clark, of East Brunswick. “This gives me an opportunity to dibble and dabble.”

Kevin Kieffer, 30, has taken on cases ranging from consumer fraud to revising a client’s will. The recent law school graduate, who wants to be a trial attorney, said he has already gained more experience than he ever would have as a junior attorney at a big law firm.

“Straight out of law school, you’ll be doing document review. You won’t be meeting with clients,” said Kieffer, of Highland Park.

Whitney English, one of the fellows, has taken on several cases, including a complex special education case in which a family is trying to move their son out of his current school and into a setting they think would better address his needs.

Like many of the firm’s clients, the family earns too much to qualify for free help through a legal aid program. But they would have difficulty affording a full-priced attorney.
“We’re their last hope, and with that comes a lot of responsibility,” said English, 31. “It’s either us or no attorney at all.”

Rothman, a former private practice attorney and longtime educator, came up with the idea for the fellowship program in the late 1990s. The idea was approved by the faculty, but the proposal languished for more than a decade.

“We couldn’t get it going, and there wasn’t an appetite for it,” Rothman said.

The downturn in the economy helped revive the idea of recruiting new graduates to start an affordable law firm for people in need. With the permission of the donor, Rutgers School of Law-Newark used a gift originally intended to help offer legal services to people with mental illnesses to provide the start-up funding for the fellowship program.

The fellows agree to stay for a year, with the option of remaining with the firm for a second year with a $40,000 salary. Though they are still trying to drum up business for the firm, the attorneys are close to taking on enough paying clients to get their fledgling firm into the black, Rothman said.

For Valerie Werse, one of the fellows, the program has been a welcome opportunity to delve into every corner of the legal profession, both inside and outside the courtroom.
“I’m not sure if I want to litigate and practice in the courtroom,” said Werse, 28, of Middletown. “It’s just nice to have a year to figure myself out.”